


Further and Further Away

by orphan_account



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Child Abuse, Dissociation, Gen, M/M, Murder, Trauma, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-18 23:43:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9408011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: In another universe, and another time, it goes too far. In another universe, and another time, Filbrick Pines is dead.





	

It’s a normal day, until it isn’t.

They’re sixteen, which is too old to not know better, and too old to be whipped. But Stan rolls his eyes and starts into it, and Filbrick takes off his belt, right in the middle of the living room.

Stan fights, of course. Of course. And Ma and Ford circle them, shouting, pleading for Fil to stop, for Stan to stop, to _grow up, you dumb jerks_. Fil grabs a heavy decorative cat, one Ma bought in a tourist trap in Pennsylvania, and hurls it across the living room. It doesn’t even miss Stan by an inch, so close to smashing open on his face that Ma _screams_ before it hits the wall and shatters.

Ma slaps Fil so hard that the sound echoes. Everything in the room goes very still. She’s never hit him before, not once.

It will be the last time.

“Go to your room,” Fil says. 

Nobody moves. “Quit bossing them around, you miserable cunt,” Ma says, through her teeth. Her handprint is vivid on his cheek.

He swings.

Stan screams, and Ford screams, but Fil and Ma are in their own vortex, now – her hair comes loose in thick bunches. His glasses fly off his face, and crunch under someone’s feet. They stagger into the kitchen. The boys know this, above all else: Filbrick is stronger than Ma. Filbrick is going to overpower her. Filbrick is going to _kill her._ They keep trying to step in, to grab her, or him, but every time they get too close, their parents slip out of their grasp – it’s like trying to get between two cats.

Fil hits her so hard that her head cracks against the cabinets.

Then, there is a sound that isn’t quite like a punch, thick and wet, and Filbrick’s breath shocks out of him with an unnatural sound.

Ma takes a step back. He takes a knee. Stan and Ford still don’t understand what’s happened, not really. Stan goes to his mother, and takes her arms, and pulls her away from Filbrick, and it’s because he’s focused on her that Ford realizes what happened, first.

“Oh no,” he says. “Oh no, oh, god, oh, Ma, what did you _do?_ ” 

Filbrick is still on one knee. His hands cradle the handle of a kitchen knife, without touching it.

“Dad!” Stan tries to go to him, but his mother’s hands tighten on his arms. He stops. 

“Oh god,” Ford says, tearing at his hair. “Oh god, we need to call an ambulance. Call an ambulance! He – oh, god. Oh, god.” 

Filbrick topples onto the floor. Ma says, “Shit.” It sounds like a record scratching to a stop.

They go very quiet. He’s still alive, making soft, unnatural noises in his throat. Ford abruptly crosses the kitchen, to the phone.

“Don’t touch that phone,” Ma says. 

“No,” Stan says, “no, Ma, no, we should – he should…” 

“I said don’t touch it,” she says, very calmly. 

Ford drops his hand. Filbrick coughs, and then lies very still. His blood pools out across the linoleum.

Stan jams a hand against his mouth. Ford sways. Ma straightens to her full height, and sweeps her hair over her shoulders, and says, “Stanley, honey, I need to borrow your car.”

*

They help her put the body in the trunk. There’s nothing else they _can_ do. They keep trading off their distress – Ford starts to shake, and make soft sobbing sounds, and Stan tells him to shut up, it’s fine, it’s okay, and then it’s Stan’s turn a few minutes later, biting his knuckles until they bleed and shaking because it’s _dad,_ it’s dad, and it’s _not_ anymore, and it’s Ford’s turn to hold his shoulders and tell him to calm down, Stanley, calm down.

Ma, through it all, is steady. She fixes her hair at the front door, and checks to make sure no one is peeking out their windows. Once they’ve shut the trunk, she leans on it, her gold bracelets jingling. “You don’t have to come with,” she says. “I got it from here.”

“No way,” Stan says. “No.” 

“Have you done this before?” Ford asks, quietly.

She laughs. “I wish,” she says.

*

Stan drives, because she doesn’t have her license. ”One crime at a time, huh?” Stan asks, and goes, _ha, ha,_ and chokes and goes quiet. Ford sits in the backseat, and kneads his legs.

Ma seems to know where she wants to go, pointing streets out to Stan, telling him to hook a left after the drug store, _y’know, the one with the fat baby in the window._ She taps her nails on the door, nervous and rhythmic; the whites of her eyes are visible.

The streetlights break through the windows, orange, unnatural.

“What are we going to tell them?” Ford says, without clarifying who. 

Ma reaches back, and pats his hand. “Don’t you worry about that,” she says. “Just breathe, baby.”

He nods, tensely, without looking at her.

Stanley notices that the car is driving differently. The weight in the trunk is changing the turns, the time it takes to brake. His hands tighten on the wheel. Their father’s weight is more than any one person can hold.

*

“Stop the car,” Ma says, when they’re still in the city. Stan does, though he’s more nervous the longer they drive. She gets out. There’s a building under construction; she steps into it primly, without taking off her heels. She comes back with the biggest concrete block she can carry. Stan and Ford come out of the car at the same time; Stan swings around to the trunk. Ford goes to help her carry it. 

“Is this really necessary?” Ford says, almost sounding like himself.

“You bet it is,” she says. 

When Stan pops the trunk, he and Ford turn their heads away, braced for – braced for what, they’re not sure, some overpowering stench, some horror to pop out at them. Their mother doesn’t share their concerns. She tips the chunk of concrete into the trunk, brushes off her dress, and snaps it shut again. “Okay,” she says. “Let’s head for the docks. The northern side.”

They get back in, and Stan drives.

*

“I’m going to be sick,” Ford says, as they drive, slow, slow, down an unlit dock. 

Stan wants to agree, or make a joke about _not in the car,_ but his jaw is wired shut so tightly that he can’t open his mouth.

“It’s okay,” Ma says, though her voice is faraway. “It’s okay.” 

*

The water is black as ink. The foam is a soft orange, casting back the city’s glow.

“Okay,” their mother says. “On three. One – two – “

They heave. There is a splash.

Ma sighs, and straightens up, and pats her dress down. “You boys wanna say something?” she asks. “Make it nice and formal?”

Stan can’t stand up. He stays in his crouched position and pulls at his hair.

“No,” Ford says, stiffly. 

Ma puts her hand on Stan’s shoulders. “Hey, hey, sugar,” she says. “It’s okay. It’s okay. You need me to drive home?”

He doesn’t – can’t – answer. After a minute, she and Ford take his arms, and help him to his feet, and they climb back into the car.

Ma drives them home. One crime at a time.

*

“We’ll talk in the morning,” she says, standing in the kitchen, just on the edge of their father’s blood. “Okay? Try and get some sleep.” 

Ford laughs, weakly.

“Okay?” she repeats. 

“Okay,” Stan says. 

They go to their room. They sit together on Stan’s bed, mimicking each other’s posture, elbows on knees, hunched over. Stan starts to cry, again. He can’t seem to stop it, on and off. Ford doesn’t move to comfort him, just sits and listens. There isn’t any comfort to offer.

“Fucker,” Stan says, the word mottled from his tears. “That fucker d-deserved it. For hitting Ma.” 

Ford nods. “He did,” he says.

Stan bites his hand.

*

“He would’ve killed her,” Ford says, slowly. 

“He would’ve killed her,” Stan echoes. 

The sky outside is letting up, becoming gray and dusty. Stan has cried himself out, for now. Ford’s glasses lay on the pillow over Stan’s head. His hand is under Stan’s shirt, resting on the hot skin of his stomach, has been there for over an hour, now. It’s the only thing that feels real to either of them.

*

They go to school the next day, and the next.

Ma talks to her friends on the phone, in a voice that is more and more worried – yeah, we had a fight and he just left, took a suitcase, no idea where he went, that prick hasn’t called yet – I don’t know, Marla, I don’t know. You think I should call the police? I don’t know – maybe in a couple days.

She sits them down, and worries at her bracelets, and tells them the story they’re going to tell the police, eventually. “We gotta do this together or not at all,” she says. “You get that, don’t you?”

They do.

*

The police come, and they lie.

*

“Do you think they’re gonna find him?” Stan asks.

“Probably,” Ford says, in a flat voice. He flips to the next page of his book. 

“If – if they find him, they’ll put Ma in jail. They’ll probably put _us_ in jail.”

“If they figure out what happened, yes.” 

Stan worries at his blanket, turning a corner over and over in his hands. “So what do we do?” he says. 

Ford shrugs, and turns the page. “Nothing.”

*

The strangest part, other than the obvious thing, is how quiet the house is, now. Their father has always been a taciturn man, speaking only when necessary and only then in the shortest sentences possible. He’s always discouraged too much rough-housing and noise. Yet without him, the house has the surreal quality of an opened tomb – Ma’s voice flutters on the phone, and they keep the TV on, and there is water to run, and cleaning to do, and over it all hangs a silence with weight and substance.

Stan’s on dish duty. He’s had a few, walked right up to the counter and bought a 12-pack and the guy at the counter didn’t even look at him twice. He sways a little, as the hot water pours over his hands. His skin is turning pink, then red. He lets it, humming. He feels good, for the first time since it’s happened. He feels real. 

Then he remembers – he has a competition next Thursday, and he’ll need to put in some extra practice before that, and Dad will – 

– will nothing. 

Stan rests his hands on the edge of the sink. The water splashes into the sink, breaking the soap suds at the surface. Ford is in the living room, curled up with a book as the evening news plays. Ma is on the phone, promising a lonely heart that love is coming down the pipeline. 

There is a ringing in Stan’s ears, and above all else – silence. 

*

It’s almost midnight. Normally, they would’ve panicked and hurried home an hour ago, but Ma hasn’t said shit to them about curfew, or rules, or anything since it happened. She lets Stan keep beer in the fridge without comment. When they stayed home two days in a row, she called the school both times, without prompting, and said they were sick, _real sick, can’t hardly move, yeah, poor things._

The sand goes cold under them, and the waves become pearlescent in the moonlight. They’re sitting very close, shoulder-to-shoulder, and have been sharing beers, taking one gulp at a time before passing it over. All they’ve talked about all day and night is the Stan O’War, and bullshit about school, and then Ford talked about fairies ( _no, Stanley, real ones – listen – )_  for almost an hour while Stan listened and laughed. 

They’ve gone quiet. They haven’t talked about him in days, but Stan knows that’s what’s on Ford’s mind, has to be. It’s where his own mind goes, when it’s not busy with other things. Maybe it’s not, though – they’re both pretty drunk at this point, and Ford has plenty more to think about than Stan does. 

“You know,” Ford says, suddenly, “it’s not your fault.” 

Stan opens his mouth. Only – he doesn’t have anything to say, to that. Stan looks at the bottle of beer in Ford’s hands, and back up to Ford’s face. “Quit hoggin’ it,” he says, and takes it from Ford, and drains it.

“It isn’t,” Ford says. “I know that you think it is. That if you hadn’t been whatever it is you think you are, he’d still be here.” 

Stan stares at the empty bottle. 

“Sorry,” Ford says. “But I want you to hear it. At least once. Before…you know, before we do the Pines thing and never talk about it again.” 

Stan jams the bottle into the sand, next to its empty brothers. They make a neat row, black as the night sky. Ford reaches behind them, picks up the last bottle, and cracks it open with his lighter. He takes a drink, and holds it out to Stan. Slowly, Stan takes it, and runs his thumb over the lip, where Ford’s mouth has been. “What do you think I am?” Stan asks, slowly. 

“Good,” Ford says. Just that – nothing more. 

Ford leans over, and takes the bottle from Stan, gently. He cups him in his hands, holding him at his head, and shoulders. He pulls him close, where no one else can see, and keeps him there until Stan is quiet, and still.

*

Stan kisses him, then.

He pushes Ford into the sand, and kisses him, and kisses him.

He feels real.

*

That winter, Ma tells them she’s going to sell the shop. It makes sense – the three of them together can put in enough hours to keep it going, but it’s inherently _his,_ in a way that sticks in them. 

Stan takes on the responsibility of selling all the crap he can, and calling up all the people who still have time to buy their crap back. He does what his father never would’ve, not in a million years – he returns some of it, no charge, and tells himself it’s just so it’s out of his hair, now. Ford helps Ma work through the legal mess behind selling the property. 

It takes them a year. 

They’re almost eighteen when Ma finally settles on a new apartment, just a small two-bedroom affair, ridiculously cramped with the three of them and all of the stuff she couldn’t bear to pare down. 

On moving day, the three of them stand in the unfamiliar kitchen and look at the packed boxes; there is no room for absences, here. There’s hardly room for them.

“What d’you think, boys?” she asks, clapping a hand on their backs.

“I’m moving out,” Ford says, mildly. 

“No kidding,” Stan says. He kicks at a box that he’s pretty sure is stuffed to the brim with pans. 

They stay like that for another moment, surveying their new lives.

Then, they move forward, one step at a time.


End file.
